Thank you for all the lovely reviews! Jessie xx

Office Politics

"What the hell is this?" Gerry exploded from the UCOS kitchen corner.

Receiving only raised eyebrows in answer, he waved his discovery above his head.

Steve and Nick paused in pinning file photos to the case board and looked at each other, eyebrows still raised. They peered around the corner to witness their colleague's inexplicably angry antics more clearly.

"Decaf?! Who's brought bloody decaf?!" Gerry elucidated, still blithely brandying the offensive jar around. He stared accusingly at Nick. The new boy. Was he responsible? There was something about the man that he hadn't quite figured out yet; he was neat, polite, well-dressed. All things which in Gerry's mind screamed 'decaf!' very loudly. "Did you do this?"

"No," Nick replied civilly, he turned back to the board and picked up a pen. "I didn't."

"Gerry, I thought you were making the coffee, not practising your juggling act," Sandra frowned as she entered the main office.

"Well I would be," he huffed. "If we had any coffee! Who did the shopping this morning?"

"I did," she stated calmly enough, knowing how close to the edge she was going to have to play the ensuing conversation: the thought of what would happen as a result of with-holding vital components of their morning routine from the boys was truly terrifying. "It's on the side, isn't it?"

"This was!" he exclaimed.

Steve snorted and shook his head, passing the next item to Nick to put up. There were times when he was sure that Gerry was part man, part caricature. Or possibly just a man who had never quite grown up. Or possibly just a normal bloke. Even if he was going slightly over the top at the wrong item being purchased in a hurried shopping run.

"Is that not coffee?" she asked simply. She knew full well that he'd completely ignored the fresh jar of their favoured coffee in his clear angst at finding its cousin alongside it where she had put them not half an hour previously. Inwardly she cursed; while she'd agreed with Rob to cut down on caffeine she had at the time of the promise suspected that he'd been hedging for her to lose the bet.

"It's bloody decaf!" Gerry practically shouted.

"Be quite, man," Steve grinned. "I think you've had enough of the real thing!"

"There's a fresh jar of coffee right next to it," Sandra smiled serenely, taking a seat and looking at the board with interest. "I'll have a decaf though, thanks. I'm trying to cut down."

"Why?" Gerry's eyes narrowed suspiciously. In the ten years he'd known Sandra Pullman he seriously doubted that he'd ever encountered a caffeine-free woman; except that morning when they'd turned up at her house really early, ridiculously early, pre-coffee early.

She shrugged as if unconcerned, though her heart pounded like a rat about to be caught in the fence. "I just think we drink a lot of coffee and it's not really that healthy, is it?"

"Quite right," Nick stepped back to admire his and Steve's board. "It raises your blood pressure. Do you know how many cases of caffeine overdose there are admitted to A&E each year?"

"No," Gerry scoffed.

"Neither do I," Nick admitted. "But Dee was covering A&E this weekend, said there were two cases of collapse caused by caffeine overdose. It's those bloody energy drinks."

"You see?" Sandra closed the debate. She laughed to herself as Gerry skulked back to the corner and located the object of his desire.

"She's a nurse then, your Dee?" Steve asked curiously. Though mentioned, they had not secured much information about Nick's other half.

"Mmm," Nick murmured non-committally.

Steve looked at Sandra, who smiled and shrugged. If Nick wanted to keep his private life private then that was his affair as far as she was concerned. Even if it was turning into a long-running frustration to Gerry and Steve and consequentially a constant amusement to herself. "Come on," she said. "I've got to report on this in half an hour, what is it?"

"It's just an idea," Rob leant back in his chair and hoped against hope that she wasn't about to leap over the table and kill him. He'd been, nervous, to put it politely, at the thought of presenting the proposition to her; despite how ideal it might yet prove to be. It was an idea he'd been brewing since the conference which had been about finding suitable officers to lead departments, especially in the case of replacing those of senior ranks due to retirement.

"Mentoring?" Sandra repeated slowly. Flashing through her mind came the memory of Gerry's Emily coming to her as a sort of mentor; it hadn't gone well. But, as the thought began to branch out, it hadn't been an official situation and had included the slightly (extremely) unpredictable Gerry-factor.

"I know it sounds like handing over responsibility," he began. Although he was sure that he had ran through every detail of his suggestion; he was keenly alert to not alienating the officer he was putting it to. Mainly because he loved her. Among his many considerations to the plan, he hoped he had applied a sufficient amount of thought to the fact that she was not only an officer under his command but his fiancée.

"It sounds like baby-sitting," she said bluntly interrupting him. She lifted the fingers of her right hand where it sat on her crossed knees, signalling to him firstly that she wasn't finished and secondly that she wasn't angry. "But, it also doesn't sound like the worst idea I've ever heard."

If he didn't know Sandra as well as he thought he did, he wouldn't have been sitting wondering what he'd just heard.

"In fact," she continued, as the idea began to etch its place on the record of things that she was currently thinking about. "It might be a really good idea."

"Might it?" he asked, completely dumb-founded. "I've got to be honest; I thought you were going to hit the roof when I suggested bringing someone else into your office!"

"Woah," she said quickly, forcing down the laugh that so desperately wanted to escape at the relieved expression on his face. "You didn't say I had to share my office!"

"Well…I…" he spluttered. Though he half-suspected that she was pulling his leg, he was also acutely aware of how he might be coming across as … a tosser.

"Relax," she rolled her eyes and smiled. She sighed as he too began to look more comfortable and less like his chair was made of fireworks. It was a impression he'd made on her many times before when she'd brought him a sensitive case or complicated problem; it was an element of his shyness that she'd never realised she loved before; it was heart-melting evidence of him being a man and not a politically-motivated-tosser. "Actually, it brings us on to what I wanted to talk about."

"Oh?" he tried to rediscover his previously satisfactory position in his chair. It was always the case; as soon as he got comfortable, he moved. It was like trying to maintain the attention of a goldfish. He had a goldfish chair.

"Well, I've been thinking about how us, UCOS and a baby is all going to work," she explained, suddenly bridging the gap between being the formal situation in his office where she was simply one of many officers under his management and the place where they were an involved couple. On both levels she dreaded his reaction to what she said next: "And, well, I'll be honest, I've found another job."